Xigmatek Aquila Micro-ATX Chassis Review

Introduction

It’s rare we see a Xigmatek chassis roll through the eTeknix office, but it’s certainly always a pleasure when one does. Xigmatek has a good reputation for creating uniquely designed chassis, with good build quality and competitive prices and it looks like they’re above to tick all those boxes once agin. The Aquila is a Micro-ATX cube type chassis, perfect for those who want a big system in a small box; perfect for LAN gaming, a HTPC setup or for those who are just short on space.

Cube style chassis are a big hit right now and virtually every major manufacturer has launched a new product in this category over the last couple of years. The biggest, or should that be the smallest, innovation in this part of the market is that the smaller chassis have been crammed full of high-end features that make them very competitive when compared to their mid-tower and even full-tower counterparts; a smaller chassis no longer means smaller performance.

The Aquila comes loaded with all the features you could need for a good gaming chassis. You’ll find USB 3.0 support, room for a Mini-ITX or micro-ATX motherboard, a full-size ATX PSU and graphics cards of up to 330mm; more than enough room for many of the biggest cards on the market.

The chassis has a really funky design that means that chassis is slightly raised at the front. The cube form factor is kept nice and level by the sloped handles on the top and bottom of the chassis. The side panel has a tall window that gives you a view of much of the chassis interior.

The right side of the chassis is a similar design to the left, this time of course, skipping the window panel; both side panels are held in place by a pair of thumb screws.

The chassis has a very bold design from the front, with the thick borders on the left and right side formed from the upper and lower supports, giving the chassis the appearance of being suspended between them. There’s a single 5.25″ drive bay at the top and the rest of the front panel is ventilated to allow air flow to any front mounted fans.

Around the back, you’ll find a pre-installed 120mm fan, although the mount will support a 140mm. On the right you’ll find four expansion slots, perfect for those running a multi-GPU setup. There’s a PSU mount at the bottom, with options for regular or inverted mounting, and there’s also a little extra ventilation in the bottom left corner; this is just behind the dedicated 2.5″ drive mounts on the interior of the chassis.

There’s a full-length lift-up dust filter and cover on the top panel, this is to provide airflow to any top mounted cooling such as radiators.

On the top of the chassis, you will find a power button. The button is quite large and contrasts nicely with the black panels of the chassis.

There’s a dust filter for the PSU mount, with benefits from excellent ground clearance thanks to the chassis full-length feet.